The Secret
by Jennifer Wand
Summary: Short, dark fic, mild X/F. The main point of writing it was to share my idea of what might really be in Xellos's head - since his motives are never made 100% clear (duh). Doesn't have much of an ending. Is it interesting?


I am a demon who has outgrown my race.  
  
No power, no knowledge was given to any demon, outside of the five kings of the dark world, like that given to me.  
  
That knowledge is my poison.  
  
Demons, monsters, the evil race, however you choose to name us - we feed off the destructive emotions of humankind. That being the case, our mission is to seek the destruction of the world. Each act of chaos, confusion, panic, anger that we incite is like sweet nectar to our souls. We soar free on the high of energy that soaks through us. And so we seek the ultimate epxression of annhilation, the end of an entire race of humans. It is a common goal, a beautiful goal.  
  
And now I know it is a pointless one.  
  
Entrusted with the job of tailing and observing the humans by my surrogate master, I was struck by how similar their energy was to ours. The feelings that they treasured, joy, energy, loyalty, are the same as ours. But while we depend on their unhappiness to gain our own satisfaction, the emotions that humans feel seem to multiply upon each other. No wonder their power seems infinite, no wonder we have been defeated throughout the centuries. They do not need to take away in order to add on. Their resources for existence never run low.  
  
The end of them would mean the end of us as well.  
  
In a world devoid of humans, what could be left for demons to feed on? We'd feast at first and then starve to death with bellies grown huge through gluttony. Most of my kind are too shortsighted to fathom this. Destruction, destruction is their motto, their endless motto. For what purpose? It's not a question they have the capacity to ask.  
  
But I have asked, and the answer is destroying me.  
  
-  
  
I have decided to be a traitor now. I have put my life in the hands of the enemy and I am directly disobeying the intention of my master. It is the most difficult balance to strike. For I must do the work my master bids me, but to my own ends. For everything I do I must find two opposite reasons. And I mustn't forget my real one. Though my master requires me to bring the world to the brink of destruction, I know my survival depends on bringing it back. And neither side I work for can know why I do what I do.  
  
So I have declared to myself that I will never say it out loud. Not even to myself. And certainly not to anyone else. No matter how much they ask. I will tell them one thing, the same thing, over and over and over.  
  
"It's a secret."  
  
-  
  
She is a silly fool of a woman. As convinced of her right as I am convinced of my wrong, and as trapped by her own words and high-flying ideals as I am trapped by my solitude. She shares with the world. I can share with nobody. And as for the others, they won't listen to either of us. I have long since betrayed Lina's trust, and that of the others, but she continues trying to turn them to her side no matter how poorly they attend her words. I find myself feeling sorry for her.  
  
And she is so much fun.  
  
She is a woman easily toyed with, easily made to fume and rant and rave and all things that women, and humans, easily do. She is like a violin I feel a constant urge to play. Slender body and tightly pulled strings, and such delicious tension I can stay alive by maintaining. In my travels before, I fed off all the travelers. Frustrating Lina into a rage, confusing Gourry (which was not so difficult), playing with Amelia's sense of justice, and let me not begin saying how I was able to feast on Zelgadis. But this journey my appetite belongs to her and her alone. Her energy is more delicious than anything I have consumed to date.  
  
One could almost say I desire her.  
  
But where have all her principles taken her? Into the mouth of the most frightening truth she has ever seen. In this temple in the north, she has discovered that her people are fundamentally mistaken in their very thinking. She does not know who or what to believe in anymore. So she has shut up her heart and fled alone.  
  
Where can she go now? She has a mission to pursue at all costs. She cannot fly from that. But she cannot face herself or any of her companions anymore. Not one of them has proven to be one she can run to in times of heartache.  
  
My heart, for I do have one, for we all do, no matter who or what we are...  
My heart prays in vain she will run to me.  
  
-  
Filia ran and ran and ran. She couldn't feel her feet anymore. The snow had slipped into her shoes and bitten into her like a rabid animal. She couldn't think; she just ran. It hurt. It hurt so much. Is this who they were? Is this who SHE was? Was this who she'd been all this time? An animal worse than a monster, a race who killed another race? Was she ... really ... deep down .. the same as HIM?  
And then there he was.  
"My, my, my," he said, standing in the snow but not feeling it (or anything, with such a frozen heart), "I always knew you dragons were violent, but I have to say this takes the cake. Perhaps we should discuss methods of xenocide over a cup of tea someday, eh, Filia-san?"  
"You." She felt like breathing fire. If only it could have done something to him, she would have. "Don't talk to me right now. Just don't."  
"Why's that?" he asked, still smiling that same stupid cocky smile that made no sense. "Truth hurt?"  
"Leave me alone," she said. Frigid words. She couldn't bear looking at him. And she couldn't afford to react to him. Not now, not when her heart was breaking in a million ways. She took a step to walk past him.  
Then she stopped. "Wait a minute," she said, heat seeping beneath her words and buoying them to the surface. "Wait a minute. You were there, weren't you? You've known, then? You knew all of that, all this time. Didn't you? You were standing there smiling and silent while I was talking all this time about how right we were..." The realization, which overwhelmed her with words, then brought her once more into silence.  
"Would you have believed me if I'd told you?' he said.  
Those words stung too. They were also right, and they also stung. She stepped toward him. "This is all your fault to begin with," she accused, pointing the swords of her own guilt at him (at anyone besides herself). "If our people hadn't been slaughtered in that war..."  
"Ah, but therein lies the difference,' he interrupted. "It was a war. Both sides were fighting. The ancient dragons refused to fight. And you destroyed them anyway. Am I wrong?"  
Something snapped inside her. The last thread of the rationalizing she'd been building like a careful spider's web, that he'd been ripping to shreds with his smile and his glib words all this time, snapped. And she flew forward, fists beating against his chest again and again and again, sobbing, screaming.  
"I HATE YOU!  
  
"I HATE YOU I HATE YOU I HATE YOU!!"  
  
(was that a small shudder she felt go through his body? she thought much later)  
  
"I hate the way you make me feel so helpless!! When I look at you and you say whatever it is you say I don't have anything left to say back and I can't STAND it-- And now is the worst time of all and you won't even let me grieve on my own!! Why can't you, why don't you ever give me a break?"  
"Give me one and I'll give you one, Filia-san. Have you ever listened to a single thing I say?"  
"Why should I?" Oh, the old pride. Why did it hurt so badly to bring to life again? Why did it taste like bile in the back of her throat? "You're garbage, less than garbage, and I can't stand you! I can't stand that I can't stand you, I can't, I'm supposed to be above this... Why do you affect me like this, why do I mind you so much, I can't stand it can't stand it can't stand it..."  
Tears flooding from her eyes, fists pounding on his chest, broken, bitter, lost...  
  
and then embraced, as his dark cape, dark arms, dark warmth came fluttering around her and enclosing her. Fists and cheek suddenly pressed against those warm shoulders, breath of a demon hot in her ear, whispering, whispering words she never in a million years could have imagined.  
  
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, Filia," (not even a san, just Filia, was this really him, what was going on here?) "I don't want to be hurting you, I have never wanted to hurt you, from the beginning. I swore to myself that I would tell nobody, I knew uttering a single word would be dangerous, but I can't stand not telling you anymore."  
She froze.  
....What?  
"You'll have to listen closely and you'll have to be silent no matter what," he was saying. What? What? What? her mind kept anxiously playing, lost, confused, frightened, clinging to him for balance, which frightened her even more. "Don't move, don't breathe, and don't even think of speaking it."  
She couldn't breathe. How could she think of breathing? She was being held tighter than she could imagine by the last person she could imagine holding her, and he was telling her things she could barely understand. What she did understand was that she felt more helpless now than ever, more at a loss to understand him than ever, when he was about to reveal his whole self to her.  
"I take orders from someone who could kill both of us in a heartbeat," he said urgently. "Who can hear and see all I do if she so desires. She trusts me, so I know she doesn't watch me so carefully. But were she to hear and see me now, with a single breath she would destroy me."  
"Xellos..." For the first time, his name escaped her lips.  
He put his hand to her mouth. Such a warm hand... "Don't speak. Listen."  
Such a warm hand on her lips. Another warm hand tangled in her hair, holding her fast to his frame. And breath so hot in her ear. She squinted her eyes shut and gritted her teeth. She felt as though she could see his expression behind her closed eyelids, an expression she never thought she'd ever see even in her imagination. Violet eyes slitted open furtively, earnest lips caressing her ear with the puffs of breath that flew into the winter air. Her hands tightened into fists on his chest. She felt like she was flying somewhere far away.  
"My master trusts me," he said. "But I'm a traitor. I'm not the monster you think I am. I'm not the monster anyone thinks I am. But I can't show it. I can't say it, and I can't do anything about it. I've killed a million beings and I've hurt and betrayed far more, but I had to. If I let myself be killed for treachery, the world would be destroyed. And I won't let this world be destroyed."  
His hand clapped over her mouth, securing her silence better. "From here on out I'm going to have to do more horrible things," he continued. "You're going to hate me for them. I have to make you hate me because that's how I stay alive. That's my food. And if I don't do these things I'll be killed. Do you understand? Nod if you understand."  
Filia, tears welling up in her eyes, nodded frantically, breathing shuddering breaths, terrified, sad, relieved, confused, all at once.  
"I'll tell you one more thing, and then I'm going to let you go and none of this will have happened. Do you understand that?"  
She nodded again.  
He removed his hand from her mouth and she sucked in air like a drowning woman. Then, with another rustle of movement that arm wound around her tightly. And suddenly this position he'd been holding her in to keep her quiet became an embrace. Whatever sense she'd finally made of all of this crumbled to pieces around her. The tears spilled out in silver streams.  
"I have to make you hate me because that's how I live," he said. "It keeps me alive, but at the same time it's killing me because I love you. That's my secret. I love you."  
His lips touched her ear in the silent snowscape, a demon's feather of a kiss, and she felt as though white and dark and blood-red wings were rising up into the sky. Her body hummed as if someone were playing a poignant tune on the lowest strings in her soul.   
It felt all at once as though his warmth was fading. And that seemed to her to be the saddest thing she could possibly think of. Without knowing what she did, she threw out her arms to hold him tightly around the waist. For an instant, she felt his warmth, and a sense of peace filled her even in all the confusion. A sense that somehow this was right.  
And then her arms were holding air.  
Filia kneeled in the snow, alone. Her legs went numb in the iciness. Her tears made glistening pearls of silver on the ivory snow. 


End file.
